EA will release The Sims 4's wedding expansion in Russia with disastrous sapphic romcom relationship intact

rockpapershotgun.com:

EA will now release The Sims 4's upcoming My Wedding Stories expansion in Russia, reversing a decision supposedly made due to concerns that it would run afoul of an anti-homosexuality law. Many fans were unhappy with this. Now EA say oh, they've checked again, and it turns out they don't need to censor anything. So the expansion will come to Russia too, but EA are delaying the launch one week so they can get their ducks in a line and launch simultaneously worldwide.

My Wedding Stories was scheduled to launch today, expanding the game's nuptials with new features for bachelor parties, rehearsal dinners, dress shopping, speeches, and all that wedding stuff. But on February 9th, a week before launch, EA announced they wouldn't release it "where our storytelling would be subject to changes because of federal laws".

A broad Russian law bans exposing minors to "propaganda of non-traditional sexual relationships", punishable by fines. Some companies have cautiously self-censored to avoid potential trouble, like the ever-brave Blizzard geo-blocking Russia from the Overwatch webcomic revealing Tracer happily had a girlfriend.

With this Sims expansion, EA's have focused a lot on Dominique and Camille, a sapphic couple in a disastrous romcom scenario. Initially they thought this would be a real problem in Russia; now they think not.

"At the time, we believed that our team could not freely share the storytelling of same-sex couple Cam and Dom in Russia and decided the best way to uphold our commitment to sharing their story was to not release this pack there," the Sims team explained in announcing their change of heart yesterday.

Many fans had protested this decision, including through a petition and a Twitter hashtag,